Shiki-Colors

Shiki-Colors mixes the elegance of a dark theme with the usability of a light theme, resulting in a hybrid theme. Shiki is designed to be fast and stable.

There is a Clearlooks version for out-of-the-box compatibility with most distros and a Murrine version for eyecandy and speed.

There are 7 color variations (Orange, Blue, Green, Purple, Red, Chocolate, Pink). A matching set of Icons, Wallpapers and GDM themes can also be downloaded separately from gnome-look or at the gnome-colors project page.

You can edit the theme's source (the gtkrc files) for further customization, which is all too easy due to the included instructions.

Must read or clowns will eat you:
* The Murrine version will only work with Murrine 0.90.3 or newer. Yes, you will need to upgrade unless you're using Ubuntu Jaunty.

* The borders are very thin, and titlebars/menubars are unified because of "LOL, ELEGANCE". If you have any difficulty resizing windows, try the included alternate metacity with thicker borders.

* In Ubuntu, for themes (installed through appearance preferences) to be able to theme applications in admin mode, you must type in a terminal:sudo ln -s ~/.themes /root && sudo ln -s ~/.icons /root

* In Ubuntu, you can use the official PPA repository for easy installation and upgrades. For Ubuntu Karmic Koala, you can simply run apt-get install shiki-colors to install from Ubuntu's universe repositories. The packages are also available in Debian Sid.

* To fix minor Firefox 3 bugs in Shiki-Colors, install the Stylish add-on and go here (or install the included userChrome.css file following the instructions in README):http://userstyles.org/styles/10822

4.6 (2009-09-25)
* Add support for Chromium's GTK theming.

4.4 (2009-07-14)
* Add new Pink (Illustrious) color variation.
* Add support for gdm-user-switch applet in Karmic.
* Fix panel matching in Dust-Murrine variant.
* Remove spaces in metacity names for easier RPM packaging. You might have to
remove the old metacity folders or run make uninstall from a previous version.

So why in shiki persist the 1 pxl underline while in murrina-crystal (fixed) there is not? O_o

Re: Re: Re: New murrine focus ring

That's actually how it's supposed to look.

Murrina crystal simply, has always had focus selection disabled. I would disable the focus line, but then people who use older murrine versions won't have focus - and disabling the focus lines also creates some bugs, mostly with icon alignment in buttons and widgets (things look 1px off).

I hope, Shiki won't be as weird for apps without menu bars in the next version. On Firefox, I'm using the nice extension that autohides the menu bar. However, it looks odd on Shiki.

I am looking forward to a solution to this. I know, there will be a way.

Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Non-GTK apps such as firefox will have an issue or two, specially with dark elements. The best you can do with firefox is install the Shiki-Colors userstyle to fix a few bugs, but it's always recommended to leave the menu bar as it is by default.

As for native apps which don't have menubars, there shouldn't be a problem. However, if you do feel the metacity doesn't blend in too well with these, you can always edit it and add a bit more height to it.

It's just the general drawback about using themes that unify the menubar and metacity. If you plan to hide the menubar in all your applications anyway, then it's better to use a better suited metacity or a theme without unified menubars/window borders.

Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I guess it's more about personal preference. I took a screenshot with and without menubar, and the version without menubar - while not as nice as the other one, doesn't look any different from a normal theme with dark window borders.

Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I have no issue that's exclusive with Firefox. It's just for all apps without menu bars (like tomboy which I use every day).

The window border+menu bar is the "black thing" on windows with menu bars while the window border alone is the "black thing" in windows without menu bars. The "black thing" in windows with menu bars fit the theme well because the gradients smoothly change from top to bottom. However, the gradients of the "black thing" of windows without menu bars did not end "smoothly". They just ended with a sudden color change to gray, which doesn't look as stylish as the former.

Did I explain it well? hehe

Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Yes, I understand what you mean. However, like I said, this is a general issue for all themes that have a unified menubar. If it were possible to set a different metacity for windows without menubars or toolbars I would do so.

Any change to the metacity would make it not blend with the menubar, so you'd have to make the menubar grey and that'd be a different theme altogether.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Thanks. I understand. I'll let you know if I figure out a way to fix this.

Offtopic: though there is no version change, I noticed that Shiki changed particularly in GNOME's volume control. The volume scrolls now have weird dark gray outlines. This is a bug, I suppose. I'm on the Clearlooks version, btw.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I think I know what you mean. It's not a bug, it just means that the theme now themes volume control's tabs properly (before it didn't) by using Clearlooks's newest code.

That the sliders have the wrong background should be a bug in Volume Control itself, since the same happens with GNOME 2.26's Clearlooks theme. Only it's less noticeable there, because that theme's tab background is closer to the regular background.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Thanks.

As I was thinking of ways to make windows without menu bars look better, I stumbled upon the classic Dust theme. Why don't you do something with the gradients for them to look less awkward for those without menu bars? I think, you can shape the metacity gradients similar to Dust's or something like that.

Regards.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

The Dust metacity has the same issues, although perhaps it's less noticeable because the titlebar is much, much smaller.

With Shiki, I can't make the titlebars any smaller than they currently are, because the design and highlight outline take up space. Perhaps in a future metacity redesign I can address these issues, but until then - messing with the gradients won't give any change as long as the menubar and metacity are unified.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I have a suggestion for this issue, a flat metacity. Flat, as in, gradient-free. Other hybrid themes' metacity don't look as awkward for those without menubars because there is no sudden change of gradients. If the shiki metacity did not have gradients, I htink, it would resolve this issue. It has to be tested first, though.

Please try the latest version. The metacity has been redesigned and it should look a bit better in those situations now.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Strong! That's what I have been looking for! :)

Have you tried adding stripes to the new metacity?

Also, it may be hard to determine whether the window is active or inactive because it solely depends on the text and icons on the metacity. You may try making the active window have the stripes while the inactive ones don't.

Good job, as usual. That's why I still haven't replaced the "The best GNOME theme I have ever seen so far" thread. ;)

There are minor highlight changes when a window is active, but if it doesn't seem like enough - you can always add a bit of unified transparency to inactive windows borders.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I have a new idea. Is it possible to have a semi-unified menubar and metacity? What I mean is this http://g.imagehost.org/0374/semi-unified_menubar.png . In the screenshot, it shows a semi-unified metacity and Firefox toolbar. It would look really cool if it would be the case of the menubar and metacity in Shiki. This way, apps without menubars would look even more elegant. :)

I failed to mention. One of the advantages of having no stripe on the metacity is greater customizability of Shiki. The user can now change the color scheme without worrying about the stripe. :D

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

I guess something like a semi-unified metacity would be nice to have, but as an optional file (like the striped and easy one). Although I'm thinking something like oxygen's 3/4's of the width separator would look better.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Apps Without Menu Bars

Yeah. My point for having a semi-unified menubar is to have an obvious break for the metacity so it would look even less awkward for apps without menu bars. It would also help for the usability of apps with menu bars because users would know where the window manager ends. Hence, it would be easier for them to determine where to click for them to drag the window.

That is up to the application developers to provide RGBA support to their apps not the theme developers.

Re: Rgba support

It's just as cyberpunk said. If you want RGBA, it should be as easy as changing the line that says "RGBA = FALSE" into "RGBA = TRUE", but it doesn't really do much since that depends on the applications themselves to support it and not any one theme.

No, it just means that it will be uploaded for Debian repos, and when Karmic syncs with them, the packages will also be available there.

GnomeZeitgeist

If you didn't know already perfectska04 a GNOME developer has used your theme (Shiki-Wise) to show off a new experimental program being developed called Zeitgeist that finds all your files and folders and tags them.

Look at the demonstration video linked in this article: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeZeitgeist

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